Psychological Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

Reframing Dilemmas in Research and Practice

Susan L. Golbeck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781135669638
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The field of early childhood education and the science of psychology have a long and closely intertwined history. The study of young children's learning within school contexts provides a test of developmental theory while at the same time identifies the limits of psychology for informing practice. The purpose of this book, part of the Rutgers Invitational Symposium on Education Series, is to bring together the work of the leading researchers in the field of child development and early education to inform three issues facing the United States today:
* clarifying developmentally appropriate instruction from the perspective of cognitive developmental psychology;
* ensuring that young children's schooling adequately addresses content; and
* meeting cognitive goals while simultaneously supporting social and emotional development.
Throughout, the role of empirical inquiry in developmental psychology for the practice of early education is examined.

II
PRACTICE OF PEDAGOGY IN EARLY EDUCATION

7
CONSTRUCTIVIST EDUCATION IN PRESCHOOL AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: THE SOCIOMORAL ATMOSPHERE AS THE FIRST EDUCATIONAL GOAL

Rheta DeVries
University of Northern Iowa

If we follow John Dewey (1916/1944) and Jean Piaget (1948/1973) in taking development as the aim of education, then our operationalization of this aim demands a description of experiences that optimally promote the child’s development—physical, social, moral, and affective, as well as intellectual. However, as Dewey (1916/1944) pointed out, “education as such has no aims. Only persons, parents, and teachers, etc., have aims” (see page). Extending this to children, Dewey emphasized that, “An educational aim must be founded upon the intrinsic activities and needs of the given individual to be educated” (see page). Dewey and Piaget converged in their emphasis on education that realizes the aim of development by capitalizing on children’s interests and cooperating with children rather than coercing them.

Over more than 29 years, my colleagues and I have worked to articulate the aims of both teachers and children in education prompted by the goal of development. Inspired especially by Piaget’s insight that development occurs through an active process of construction, we have called this constructivist education (DeVries & Kohlberg, 1987/1990; DeVries & Zan, 1994). Piaget’s work has inspired us to articulate a general view of classroom experiences (Kamii & DeVries, 1975/1977), including traditional pretend play, block building, art, music, woodworking, and stories, as well as adding to these traditional activities new types of activities such as arithmetic debates (Kamii, 1985, 1989, 1993), group games (Kamii & DeVries, 1980), physical-knowledge activities (Kamii & DeVries, 1978/1993), and social and moral discussions (DeVries & Zan, 1994). The teaching of literacy follows a whole language emergent literacy approach. Subject matter goals are approached through an integrated curriculum organized around projects and themes such as making paper and simple machines (also see Morrow, chap. 10, this volume).

In recent work, we point out, however, that it is possible for a teacher to conduct physical knowledge activities and group games and use all the other activities mentioned above without implementing constructivist education in its most essential aspect. Activities, materials, and classroom organization by themselves are not the essence of this educational approach. Rather, the first principle of constructivist education is to cultivate a sociomoral atmosphere in which respect is continually practiced. By sociomoral atmosphere, I refer to the entire network of interpersonal relations in a classroom. These pervade every aspect of the child’s experience in schools. Adults determine the nature of the sociomoral atmosphere in which the young child lives through daily interactions. The child’s sociomoral atmosphere is made up, in large part, of the countless adult actions and reactions to the child that form the adult-child relationship. Peer relations also contribute to the sociomoral atmosphere, but the adult often establishes the framework of limits and possibilities of peer relations. The principle of mutual respect leads teachers and children to value fairness and cooperative methods of resolving social and moral conflicts in a community characterized by caring relationships. The principle of mutual respect also leads to democratic processes. This sociomoral atmosphere also may be viewed as an intellectual atmosphere in which the teacher’s respect for children leads to valuing their discovery, invention, debate about ideas, and especially their wrong ideas and reasoning. Therefore, the conditions that promote sociomoral development are the same conditions that promote intellectual development. This sociomoral atmosphere must be the first principle because it is a necessary context for children’s optimal development in all domains.

THE FOUNDATION IN PIAGET’S THEORY

Piaget pointed out that constructive activity flourishes best in a particular kind of relationship with adults. To understand this point, it is necessary to go back to Piaget’s (1932/1965) book The Moral Judgment of the Child. In constructivist education, the conception of the teacher-child relationship is based on Piaget’s (1932/1965) distinction between two types of morality and two types of adultchild relationships: one that promotes development and one that retards it.

Two Types of Morality

The first type of morality is a morality of obedience. Piaget called this heteronomous. The word heteronomous comes from roots meaning “regulation by others.” Therefore, the individual who is heteronomously moral follows moral rules given by others out of obedience to authority having coercive power. Heteronomous morality is conformity to external rules that are simply accepted and followed without questions.

The second type of morality is autonomous. The word autonomous comes from roots meaning “self-regulation.” By autonomy, Piaget did not mean simply independence in doing things for oneself without help. Rather, the individual who is autonomously moral follows moral rules of the self. These have a feeling of personal necessity. Autonomous morality is following internal convictions about the necessity of respect for persons.

Two Types of Adult-Child Relationships

These two types of morality correspond to two types of adult-child relationships. The first is coercive and promotes heteronomous morality. In this relation, the adult prescribes what the child must do by giving ready-made rules and specific instructions for behavior. In this relation, respect is a one-way affair. That is, the child is expected to respect the adult, and the adult uses authority to socialize and instruct the child. The adult controls the child’s behavior. The child’s reason for behaving is therefore external to her own reasoning and system of personal interests and values.

Certainly, the young child’s relations to adults are necessarily and largely heteronomous. That is, for reasons of health and safety, as well as reasons stemming from practical and psychological pressures on the adult, parents and teachers must regulate children externally in many ways. The child is forced to submit to a whole set of rules whose reasons are incomprehensible to him. The obligations to eat certain foods at certain times, not touch certain delicate or important objects, and so on, can only be felt by the child as external because these obligations cannot be felt from within. When governed continually by the values, beliefs, and ideas of others, the child practices a submission that can lead to mindless conformity in both moral and intellectual spheres. In other words, so long as adults keep the child occupied with learning what adults want him to do and with obeying their rules, he will not be motivated to question, analyze, or examine his own convictions and construct his own reasons for following rules. In Piaget’s view, following the rules of others through a morality of obedience will never lead to the kind of reflection necessary for commitment to a set of internal or autonomous principles of moral judgment. Piaget warned that coercion socialized only the surface of behavior and actually reinforces the child’s tendency to rely on purely external regulation.

The teacher whose objective is obedience must be coercive, even if he or she attempts to foster obedience through positive means such as coaxing or bribing. Certainly heteronomous practices can be discussed as a continuum from outright hostile and punitive methods to sugar-coated coercion. What these all have in common is emphasis on obedient behavior. The teacher is clearly the authority, and children’s behavior is regulated by what the teacher wants.

Piaget noted that extensive coercion can produce three unfortunate reactions: rebellion, mindless conformity, or calculation. When children are governed continually by the values, beliefs, and ideas of others, they practice a submission that can lead to mindless conformity in both moral and intellectual life. Such an individual may be easily led by any authority. Because of failure to develop a personal feeling about the necessity of moral rules, the obedient child may eventually rebel, openly or privately. By calculation, I refer to the child who follows adult rules only so long as under surveillance.

Piaget contrasts the heteronomous adult-child relationship with a second type that is characterized by mutual respect and cooperation. The adult returns the child’s respect by giving him the possibility to regulate his behavior voluntarily. Piaget called this type of relation autonomous and cooperative. He argued that it is only by refraining from exercising authority that the adult opens the way for the child to develop a mind capable of thinking independently and creatively, to construct a decentered personality, and to develop moral feelings and convictions that take into account the best interests of all parties. By insisting that the child only follow rules, values, and guidelines given ready-made by others, the adult contributes to the development of an individual with a conformist mind, personality, and morality—an individual capable only of following the will of others. Tragically, obedience-based schools simply perpetuate qualities needed for submission.

Basically, what we are talking about is power. Kipnis (1976) has written a book called The Powerholders in which he emphasized that no one wants to be powerless. We all know about the use of power of men over women, by women who dominate men, or executives or political leaders who exercise raw power over people. Kipnis wrote about adults, but I would like to direct your attention to the issue of power in the classroom and especially to what happens when authoritarian teachers control children. As we look at some of Kipnis’s research with adults, think about parallels in the teacher-child relationship.

One solid finding from the work of Kipnis and his colleagues is that when powerholders are successful in coercing others with strong tactics such as ordering, threatening, and getting angry, the belief of the powerholders is strengthened that he or she controls the other person. The powerholder demands. The other obeys. A second finding, is that to the extent powerholders believe they control others, they devalue those they believe they control. This sets the stage for exploitation of the less powerful. Do even well-meaning adults exploit children?

Heteronomy is a relation of unequal power in which the adult has it all. Cooperation is a relation in which power is equalized. Obviously, children and adults are not equals. However, when the adult is able to respect the child as a person with a right to exercise his will, one can speak about a certain psychological equality in the relationship. Piaget, of course, was not advocating complete freedom, and neither am I. Rather, the suggestion is that coercion is minimized to the extent possible and practical, and that what is most desirable is a mixture increasingly in favor of the child’s regulation of his own behavior.

The method by which the autonomous relationship operates is that of cooperation. Cooperating means coordinating one’s own feelings and perspective with a consciousness of another’s feelings and point of view. The motive for such decentering and reciprocity begins in feelings of mutual affection and mutual trust, which become elaborated into feelings of sympathy and consciousness of intentions of others. The constructivist teacher appeals to cooperation rather than obedience by asking rather than telling, suggesting rather than demanding, and persuading rather than controlling (see also Hyson, this volume, for further discussion of the power of emotions in early development and education).

To clarify, it is important to say that heteronomy is often appropriate and certainly sometimes unavoidable in adult-child interactions. However, when it is necessary to coerce a child, it is important how one does so. The adult can be disrespectful by saying, “Do it because I say so,” or respectful, by explaining why something is required in a way the child can understand.

When we talk about decentering, autonomy, and cooperation, we are talking about processes that are simultaneously cognitive and emotional. Adult coercion produces a constriction of children’s minds, personalities, and feelings. Adult cooperation produces a liberation of children’s possibilities for construction of their intelligence, their personalities, and their moral and social feelings (see also Stipek & Greene, chap. 3, this volume, for discussion of the potential impact of emotions on achievement).

The reader may rightly protest that no child’s life is totally coercive or totally cooperative. I agree. The focus here is on how a predominance of coercion or cooperation influences children’s development. However, each child presents a unique history of coercive and cooperative experiences. We are convinced that no child has experienced so much coercion that a cooperative teacher cannot ameliorate, at least to some extent, the effects of heteronomy. Each classroom, too, will provide a mixture of coercive and cooperative experiences. Again, our stance is optimistic. I believe that moral classrooms will promote moral development in children—as well as emotional, social, and intellectual development.

Peer Relations

According to Piaget, peer interactions are crucial to the child’s construction of social and moral feelings, values, and social and intellectual competence. As suggested by the prior discussion of teacher-child relationships, I do not agree with those who interpret Piaget as saying that it is only in relations with peers that autonomous morality and intelligence develop.

However, peer relations are especially conducive to social, moral, and intellectual development for two reasons. The first is that peer relations are often characterized by an equality that can never be achieved in adult-child relations, no matter how hard that adult tries to minimize heteronomy. Peer relations can lead to recognition of the reciprocity implicit in relations of equality. This reciprocity can provide the psychological foundation for decentering and perspective-taking. However, autonomy can be violated in child-child interactions as well as in interactions with adults.

The second reason peer relations provide a good context for development is that seeing other children as like themselves results in a special feeling of interest that motivates peer contacts. These contacts are social, moral, and intellectual endeavors. In the course of peer interaction, children construct consciousness and differentiation of self and others, schemes of social reaction, and cooperation in thought and action. Conflict situations, discussed later, provide a special context in which children construct social and moral convictions.

The cooperative teacher-child relation is realized in part when the teacher engages with children as a peer. For example, in a board game, the teacher can take the role of a player alongside children. As a player, the teacher must also agree with children on the rules, abide by the rules, and accept their consequences. By giving up authority in this situation, the teacher promotes child autonomy. As a player, the teacher can ask direction from children and give them the instructional role. As a loser, the teacher can model an attitude of good sportsmanship, share feelings of disappointment, and demonstrate methods of coping with defeat.

THE SOCIOMORAL ATMOSPHERE IN PRACTICE

In our book Moral Classrooms, Moral Children: Creating a Constructivist Atmosphere in Early Education (DeVries & Zan, 1994), Betty Zan and I operationalized our definition of the sociomoral atmosphere by focusing on every aspect of the constructivist program. Let me outline some of the principal ways in which we think it is possible for a teacher to promote children’s development by practicing mutual respect.

Conflict Resolution

Conflicts are inevitable in an active classroom where free social interaction occurs. In Piaget’s theory, conflict plays a special role, serving to motivate reorganization of knowledge into more adequate forms. Piaget (1975/1985) stated that intraindividual conflict is the most influential factor in acquisition of new knowledge structures. Intraindividual conflict can be prompted in the case of interindividual conflict. Children’s conflicts may thus be viewed as a possible source of progress in social, moral, and intellectual development.

In the face of a conflict between children, the constructivist teacher recognizes that the conflict belongs to the children and believes in the children’s ability to solve their conflicts. The teacher takes conflicts seriously and devotes the necessary time to helping children work through to a solution satisfactory to both. The teacher’s role may be described in 14 principles of teaching (see DeVries & Zan, 1994), including helping children talk and listen to each other, giving them the opportunity to suggest solutions, upholding the value of mutual agreement, giving children the opportunity to reject proposed solutions, and helping children repair their relationship.

Rule Making and Decision Making

A unique characteristic of constructivist education is that responsibility for much decision making is shared by everyone in the class community. Inviting children to make rules and decisions is one way the teacher can reduce heteronomy and promote autonomy.

Through reflecting on the problems of classroom life together, children can be led to realize that particular rules are necessary and why. For example, in one classroom of 5-...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series Foreword
• Editor’s Preface
• Introduction
• I: Foundations for Instruction and Pedagogy
• II: Practice of Pedagogy in Early Education